Surgical Progression
Posted on 03 Jun 2023 @ 7:06pm by Commander Anson Corduke MD
Mission:
M3 - Into the Deep
Location: USS Pathfinder - Sick Bay
Timeline: MD09 - 0957 HRS
1569 words - 3.1 OF Standard Post Measure
It was almost as bad as it had been after the Hobus star had gone supernova. It was hard not to compare it, considering the sheer volume of injuries he was dealing with, and the particular severity of this one. Doctor Anson Corduke had been a former Starfleet Physician, retired to a tropical beach village living the good life sipping on tropical drinks all night and sleeping in until noon. But then Hobus went boom, and his little slice of paradise turned into refugee central. As a Physician, he was obviously called in to deal with that, but he’d caught the first Starfleet vessel that came to the area (and was leaving) and hitched a ride home, using his retired status to barter passage. His retirement had gone up much like Hobus had, and he’d felt no other choice but to return to the Fleet.
That of course, was a few years ago now. He was the Chief Medical Officer again, this time on the Theseus where he really ought to have been. But he’d been bored and feeling a little useless so he’d volunteered to go with Commander Brightwood and Lieutenant Tahriik on their little excursion down to get the Pathfinder’s away team. It was a good thing he had, as he was very much needed on the planet to treat the survivor of that long forgotten crew. With Pathfinder’s Doctor on their own away team, all the man would have had was Petty Officer Mamello. While the Corpsman was one of the best he’d dealt with in his career, he wasn’t a Physician and the skillset needed to keep this man alive was more his than Mamello’s.
The patient in question was one Porter Wallace, a Major in the SFMC. The ships database easily matched the scans of the man to his personnel records and so Duke was able to get a comprehensive medical record on the big display in the surgical suite so he knew what he was dealing with as he was trying to save the man’s life, then patch him up. But the man on the table before him was nothing much like the man in the image of his personnel file. He looked to have aged a lifetime in the years he’d been on that planet, his body was frail and malnourished, in fact some of his injuries were breaks not from massive impacts but because the bones were so weak from lack of nutrition. What should have been a two-hundred and some odd pound mass of muscles and anger was barely one-hundred and thirty pounds.
Duke’s speciality was cardiology and his first, immediate reaction to all of this had been that he wasn’t long for this world. At his nourishment level his heart should have long ago stopped being able to keep up. The man was walking dead. A ticking time bomb waiting for his heart to finally say it was done, and end his time in this galaxy. Yet here he was, clinging to life on his surgery bed. It’d take a few minutes of frantic scanning and terror that he was going to lose this guys heartbeat to realize that the man had an artificial heart. When Duke realized that, he understood how he was still alive. It was, quite literally, the only reason he was still breathing. The real deal would have shut down long, long ago.
Of course, his lack of nourishment was only one part of the equation. The wounds the man had sustained in his battle with the Pyrryx Tahriik had tangoed with were substantial on their own. He had significant, puckering slashes down the right side of his body, across his legs and ribs, two of which were actually protruding from his flesh. His face was scratched, cut and he had another long, puckering gash across his eye. One significant enough that Duke wasn’t sure that he would be able to keep that eye. The man had lost a ton of blood and they’d exhausted the limits of the Demophon’s medical suite to try and replace it. Now that they were in the main surgical suite, that had been the first order of business, the second being to make sure that the thing that had been keeping him alive despite all odds (his artificial heart) did not fail here on the home stretch.
Surgical procedure wasn’t Duke’s forte, but of course he was more than well versed in it. He was a Starfleet Doctor; this was an expected part of their job. But the level of this surgery was enough that he certainly wished that he had an expert with him. Someone like Doctor Pembroke from the Alexander. So much so that he was debating if it was wiser to stabilize this patient until he could get Doctor Pembroke here. The more he thought about it, the more he thought that was a good idea, that was if he could get the man stabilized. He may have no choice but to mend him best he could and let Pembroke, or even Doctor Mazur re-treat him just to make sure it was done properly.
Duke had sketched out the rough plan for Wallace treatment, and so they had begun the slow and methodical process of treating his issues one at a time. It wasn’t a swift process and purposely so.
By the time Doctor Corduke was satisfied that Major Porter was not only stable but well on his way to recovering, quite a bit of time had passed. He hadn’t paid attention to the goings on with the ship or anything else for that matter. His concern was the patient on his biobed. If the ship had to be evacuated, they would deal with that. But other than the occasional rocking of the ship indicating that something was going on beyond the hull, he paid it no mind. That was part of the job of a Starfleet Physician. Treating the sick and dying despite the greater issues in plan around you.
Doctor Corduke finally stepped out of the surgical bay, exhausted. He hadn’t really been thinking about what would be waiting for him in the main sick bay when he was done, so he couldn’t say he was surprised to see that it was chaos. He was, however, momentarily overwhelmed by it all.
Sick Bay was alive with activity and what was left of the nursing staff that hadn’t been in surgery with him were hurriedly going about treating the wounded. Petty Officer Mamello was among them, treating some minor scrapes and bruises on the Marines who would typically be his charge. But his attention moved quickly to the main bio bed where Doctor Wagner and another Nurse were tending a Marine who did not look to be in the best of shape. One who’s face he didn’t recognize.
In one of the other beds, he could see Petty Officer Mamello tending to another Marine who looked pretty worse for the wear, but this one he recognized as the Marine that had been on the bridge with them during their daring escape. The one leading the expedition - Major Finn. The man was clearly in serious condition, so he went quickly to his bed, presuming that Doctor Wagner could handle herself for now. Duke immediately went to the display to see what the butchers bill was, as it were, and hissed internally to see how much was wrong.
The man was clearly suffering from a concussion, one severe enough it made him wonder how he’d even managed to walk himself onto the shuttle let alone speak coherently to the Captain. His face was beat up with multiple cuts, contusions and a rapidly growing pair of black eyes. Multiple broken ribs, one collapsed lung (which was also slightly punctured), two busted eardrums and a partridge in a Pear tree. Nothing specifically life-threatening, at least they wouldn’t be if they got them all sorted quickly.
“Doctor,” Mamello nodded, “I’ve given him something for the pain, but broken ribs and punctured lungs are beyond my skills,” he said, his thick Swahili accent harder to distinguish amongst the din of noise in Sick Bay.
“Heya, Doc,” Major Finn smiled, rolling his head over towards him. He started to speak again and then had a small coughing fit into his hand, which he wiped on his tattered uniform, smearing the blood he’d coughed out on it. “My Marines. They’re all alive, right?”
“I don’t know, Major,” Duke replied, looking away to wave a nurse over to help. “Right now, I’m worried about keeping you alive,” he said, purposely not looking towards Wagner’s bay. His guess was that if they were going to have a casualty, which he certainly hoped not, it would be hers.
“I’m fine, doc,” Finn waved flippantly. “Help my Marines. Most wounded first.”
“I am,” Duke replied, “That’s you. Now shut up and let me take care of you,” he snapped, turning to the nurse that had joined them. “Right, nurse, here’s what I need…”
